Wednesday, 12 May 2010

CHEESE LOVERS PIZZA & GREEK ~ Ottawa ON

It had been a busy weekend. It was late and I did not feel like cooking. LJ was feeling Greek. I wasn't. I was feeling wings. LJ wasn't. One place that niether one of us had tried before just might have been able to deliver both:

This little pizzariea is on a a small strip on the North stretch of Merivale ave, with only a handfull of other businesses and a lot of apartments and housing. I almost drove right by the place. Inside was a counter of huge slices of pizza, all of which were loaded with cheese. Very thick. Looked like 'Ottawa style' which I don't dig, but if you do, they are very generous with the top style cheese.

There is diner-style booths to sit at, but there isn't much of a decore or atmosphere to the place. Some teenagers/University aged kids came in and sat in the booths for a while, but took their orders and sat on the curb outside to enjoy their food.

The pizza chef for the evening (possibly the owner, an older gentleman) look tired and ready to close up shop. I don't blame him, it's not an easy job. I saw him start with the wings, and I was excited because . . . I saw fresh chicken wings. Fresh, not frozen. That was a good sign.

Before long I had our orders packed in a paper bag with menu stapled on and out the door. As I mentioned above, LJ went with Greek food. She ordered the soulvaki chicken wrap platter.

Above shows the platter. Rice; hinted with seasonings, but rough and not really enjoyable. Possibly had been sitting all day as this was the later evening. The potato . . . didn't even look like potato. I thought it was skewered meat. These too I think had been sitting most of the evening. Blah. The Greek salad was thickly chopped (several centimetres thick of cucumber) and the feta was also a bit blah. The dressing tasted fresh and homemade, as did the tzatziki. That was a nice touch.

The chicken wrap was pita filled with marinated chicken, tomato, onions and more tzatziki. The marinated chicken wasn't anything special and the wrap was easily passable. Not bad, just nothing that got the taste buds popping.

The whole ride home I was excited and nervous to see how the wings would turn out. They smelled fantastic, and I saw that they had been fresh. But I have been let down so many times before . . .

The wings come in orders of what they describe as "5 + 5 free = $6.50" which is a little sneaky in terms of advertising. I mean really, its 10 wings.

Cheese Lovers wings came out Buffalo style - deep fried naked and tossed in Buffalo sauce. The wings were still hot when I opened up the styrophome container. The cayenne sauce climbed up my nose and my senses went wild.

Except for one sense: sight. While they smelled good, felt good and (eventually tasted good), these were pathetically small wings. Pigeon wings.

I mean really, look at that picture above. What is that? No really? There were a few medium sized wings that were decent, but too many very small wings.

Anyways, the skin on these wings were very crisp, even after the drive home. And saucy. These were some wet wings with lots of sauce. I had ordered Suicide, but the heat level was much more of a Hot. There was a good tingle coming off the sauce. But the buttery/cayenne flavour matched with the hot, crispy skin was just heaven. So good. I was really left wanting more after they were gone.

FINAL SCORE: Greek food was a pass. The wings were, flavour wise, awesome. Cheers for sure. The size of the wings were definetely jeers. So small. But fresh. What can you do? Cheese Lovers Pizza & Greek says "Our customers claim we're the best" - well, I don't know about that. If the wings were just a bit bigger the score would have been awesome. But I admit, I'd rather have fresh small wings than jumbo frozen. 5/9

3 comments:

Sometimes it would be better if they sold wings by the pound and included a count like shrimp so you KNOW what size you are getting. (A pound of U12 shrimp means you have about 12 per pound. 21-30 is large, etc)